Howey Residents: When Does It End?

March 13, 1988|By Angela Dickey of The Sentinel Staff

HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS — To settle or not to settle, that is the question -- and has been, for more than a year.

In the aftermath of Tuesday's election, in which Carlin Washo and Charlotte Lehner won council seats by large margins, it appears that Howey homeowners are committed to fighting the DeSisto College lawsuit.

However, that doesn't mean they don't want the costly legal process to end. Nearly all residents agree: They're sick of the lawsuit. Sick of talking about it, sick of hearing about it, sick of reading about it, sick of paying for it. The attorneys' bill for February, which came in a few days ago, is $12,600. That puts Howey's total lawsuit costs at more than $224,000. The college's costs to date are even higher -- $290,000.

''We'd be fools to stay in this lawsuit if there were any way to get out of it,'' Washo said Thursday, ''but there are different degrees of settlement.'' She is adamant that homeowners' rights would have to be protected in any negotiations.

Lehner said practically the same thing Wednesday, when she listed her own conditions for settlement: The town will not pay any of DeSisto's legal fees, and the college cannot encroach on residential areas.

ZONING IS THE KEY

According to Howey officials, allowing the college in areas zoned for residences would violate the town's 10-year comprehensive plan. Violating the plan is against state law, they say.

''Zoning should not be in conflict with the comprehensive plan,'' Tom Grimms, a planner for Lake County, said this week. ''The comprehensive plan is supposed to serve as the foundation for your zoning.''

But hold on a minute, DeSisto officials say. The college's use of homes is not in conflict with the comprehensive plan, they claim, because the town permits schools in residential areas, and a college is a school.

No, it's not, homeowners fire back. The town's zoning ordinances were never intended to allow any kind of educational institutions other than elementary and high schools, they say.

Michael DeSisto says the town's hard-line position is untenable because all of Howey, with the exception of a small commercial strip on Central Avenue, is zoned residential.

That's not really true, says Tom Line, chairman of Howey's zoning board. The zoning code provides for CP (commercial planned) districts in the town. That's what DeSisto could have, and should have, applied for in the first place, Line says, instead of filing a federal lawsuit against Howey.

''Human beings have the right to live in houses wherever they want to,'' DeSisto countered Thursday. He says the people of Howey have left him nowhere to go. At the same time, he says, he is ''desperate'' to settle.

Last weekend, Marsha Glines, president of the college, wrote in a letter to Howey residents that officials would not accept ''a settlement that calls for us to pack up and leave.''

THE FIRST ATTEMPT

Town and college officials have twice engaged in settlement negotiations. Twice they have emerged with no solution.

Last January, just after the suit was filed, then-City Attorney Bob Williams and the college's attorney, Roderick MacLeish, met in Howey to work out a settlement proposal. Coming out of that meeting was a written settlement proposal and an accompanying map.

Council members rejected the proposal, saying it would effectively give large chunks of residential property to DeSisto.

As reflected on the map, which The Orlando Sentinel recently acquired, the settlement proposed rezoning all properties abutting State Road 19, which runs through the center of town.

Had the settlement been adopted, college uses would have been permitted in the rezoned areas -- in other words, up and down the town's main street.

Accounts differ on exactly what happened during the settlement meetings. Michael DeSisto says he only wanted to use the map as a starting point for negotiations.

However, said MacLeish last week, ''I felt we had an agreement with Mr. Williams. I felt we had the contours worked out.''

Michael DeSisto claims that town officials never showed up for a meeting at which negotiations were to begin.

Washo denies that interpretation of the events. She says that she met with MacLeish and DeSisto at Williams' office. Before the meeting, she says, Williams presented the map to her as if it were the college's bottom line.

''The next morning,'' Washo says, ''I got a phone call from Williams, who said DeSisto felt it was useless to meet again.''

Williams later resigned because his views about settlement did not coincide with those of town officials. Newspaper accounts at the time reported that Williams expressed the view that the townspeople were unwilling to settle. In recent days, Williams has not responded to inquiries about his role in the first settlement proposal.